The White Game
by Picoroo
Summary: All is peaceful in the Soul Society, but when a new threat rises, looking for revenge, Yumichika and his fellow Shinigami must work together to find a solution. /Sequel to Last Twilight/
1. Prologue

**Title: The White Game**

**Author: Angel015**

**Summary: It's been five years since the events of Last Twilight, and all is peaceful. That is, until a new threat rises, one desperate for revenge. **

**A/N: Yes, it's back, with a whole new adventure filled with mischief and mayhem. I know this chapter is short, but it is only the prologue, future chapters will be longer and have more detail, but I just thought I would throw this out there and see what you think :) This will be updated alongside my other fic; 'Flying Home', so updates will not be regular nor particularly quick unless I have a mountain-load of free time (Unlikely, but one can hope). I do foresee a long wait come September, since I start University then, so I'm hoping to get as much done before then as possible, and hopefully write ahead of what I post, so during the first few months of Uni I have something to keep posting at regular intervals until I get my act together. **

**It's not essential that you read Last Twilight, but it is strongly recommended, as past events from said story will be mentioned throughout, and there will be many events/positions/relationships/characters that were introduced in the first story that will be a big part of this one. In short, if you haven't already, go and read it before reading this, it will save you a lot of confusion. Of course, if you are feeling brave, you may just ignore my advice and read on! :) But don't say I didn't warn you.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story save my original characters, it all belongs to Tite Kubo. Not me. If I did, Yumichika would be getting hell of a lot more screentime.**

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><p>The last drops of winter twilight sun filtered through the blinds of the ancient library, casting an orange-pink glow on the dusty old books and scrolls stacked on shelves or scattered over the tables. A tall, slender woman with long silver-white hair was bent over a pile of yellowing parchments, papers and books spread out over the table surrounding her, furiously scribbling notes every time she found something of worth. Her clear blue eyes flicked between pages, long thin fingers constantly keeping track of where she was on her main page. The expression on her face was one of calm concentration, even the growing sound of thundering footsteps unable to break through her focus.<p>

Only once the door slammed open and a large muscled man with a mess of curly black hair stood panting in the doorway, yukata rumpled and creased, did the young-looking woman barely break her concentration.

"What is it?" she asked, her voice sounding almost devoid of emotion, completely deadpan and bored. She didn't once look up from her studies, continuing with her notes.

"Ku-Kumiko, I just received some news! It's about your father!"

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><p>"Yep, he's gonna die."<p>

The large crowd of shinigami that had gathered around the courtyard winced collectively as one captain practically threw the other across the clear patch. It was a duel of epic proportions, half the surrounding buildings already partially destroyed, and according to one, it was a fight that was long overdue.

Zaraki couldn't help but grin as he slammed into one of the wooden pillars, the wood splintering and breaking under the force. The shinigami who had been standing there scattered, pressing as away as possible from the maniacal captain as the roof collapsed in with nothing left to support it.

"I hate to admit it, but I think I'd have to agree."

On the other side of the arena stood Yumichika, calm, collected and with an almost smug smirk on his face. His Zanpaktou was fully released, vines hovering around him, just waiting to attack. Zaraki once again launched himself at the pretty-boy. Yumichika however, simply stepped calmly out of the way. The glowing azure vines shot out from the hilt of his zanpaktou as the larger captain flew past, snagging the man by the ankles and stopping him midair before forcefully dragging him to the ground.

Captain Shuuhei and Third seat Ikkaku flinched from the sidelines as Zaraki's face became close friends with dirt. Ikkaku wondered why in the hell he had been so worried about his friend in the days leading up to this fight. Yumichika tended to keep his training private, and other than when he used it in actual battles, which were few and far between these days, Ikkaku had rarely seen him actually use his Shikai. It was much more effective than he had imagined.

Although the ex-fifth seat wasn't using the sword to sword combat the eleventh favoured so much, he was using the vines his Zanpaktou produced creatively. Rather than using them for their main intended use, Zaraki's Reiatsu being far too large for that to cause any effect, he was using them to both prevent Zaraki from getting too close and using their strength to throw him into various solid objects.

Zaraki, already covered in bleeding cuts and bruises laughed into the ground, before using his sword to push himself up into a standing position. Yumichika smirked, sealing his sword and preparing to fight the old fashioned way, though he had a simple kidou spell formed in his hand ready should he need to use it.

Turns out he did, a lot. When fighting Zaraki, it was almost impossible to beat him unless you pulled out all the stops. He was cleverly mixing Kidou with his sword fighting, using simple blast spells every now and again to distract the larger man, before moving in to attack when he wasn't paying attention.

The intense battle went on for another half an hour, Yumi finally getting the deciding blow, something they had agreed on. As much as Zaraki would have love for it to be a fight to the death, he knew there would be several serious ramifications should he actually win that. Namely Ikkaku, Matsumoto and the pretty-boy's sister. So they had agreed the first to get a proper stab would be the winner.

Zaraki stepped back a few paces, examining his wound with an almost bored expression. Then he grinned, sheathing his sword.

Yumichika stood panting, Zanpaktou tip dropped to the floor as he watched Zaraki's reaction with curiosity and if you looked close enough, a bit of smugness.

The vast crowd that had gathered were silent, too stunned to talk or even move.

The great unbeatable had been beaten.

Sort of.

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><p>"Right, let's take a look at the two of you," Unohana said, serene as ever, not too long later as she glided into the hospital room the two captains were being held in. If she was shocked at the lack of injuries on the smaller and the opposite on the larger she certainly didn't show it.<p>

Yumichika was sat, seemingly injury free, on a bed on one side of the room, staring out the window, a small smile gracing his features. Zaraki on the other hand, cuts and bruises littering his skin and a rather impressive stab wound in his shoulder, was grinning from ear to ear.

The examination didn't last long. The healer tended to Zaraki first, and halfway through Yumichika's check-up, a dark hell butterfly fluttered in, landing quite annoyingly on top of his head.

"Not this one again," Yumichika muttered darkly, eyes glancing upwards. Unohana simply laughed softly behind her hand, the other reaching out for the insect to crawl onto her finger. Once the message was relayed, she sighed, allowing the butterfly to fly off.

"Emergency captains meeting, we'd better go."

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><p>"Who did it?" the high pitched scream of anger echoed through the meeting hall, several captains wincing. Yumichika rubbed his ear, frowning at the sudden ringing sound. Head captain had mentioned a guest, someone who had been desperate to talk to them. She had exploded into the room, silver hair flying and sharp eyes blazing, screaming like a banshee. Her pale blue kimono was creased and ripped in several places, like she had been in a hurry to get here.<p>

The head captain, one of the few who didn't seem to have any sort of reaction, simply raised an eyebrow. "I'm afraid you are going to have to be more specific."

"My father," the woman spat, glaring furiously at the old man, "one of you killed him! And I want to know who!"

The majority of the captains blinked in confusion, looking at each other. There was only one who had a vague idea of what she was talking about, and he was trying very hard to keep the guilty expression from creeping onto his face. Yumichika knew she looked familiar in some ways. The long silver hair, almost overly slender figure and high cheekbones were something he had seen before, less than a decade ago. Add that together with one dead father who looked remarkably similar and the fact that someone in that room had done it, there could only be one clear answer.

Osamu.

Crap.

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><p><strong>AN: Reviews are encouraged and welcomed, good or bad. I know things are a little vague right now, but in time all questions will be answered. **

**Also, while we're here...did anyone else see Yumi's new look in the manga and almost die from the sheer awesomeness of it? Hopefully, if Kubo went through all the trouble of redesigning his character we may see more of him? *hopes* **


	2. Mystery Power

"Who did it!" the high pitched scream of anger echoed through the meeting hall, several captains wincing. Yumichika rubbed his ear, frowning at the sudden ringing sound. Head captain had mentioned a guest, someone who had been desperate to talk to them. She had exploded into the room, silver hair flying and sharp eyes blazing, screaming like a banshee. Her pale blue kimono was creased and ripped in several places, like she had been in a hurry to get here.

The head captain, one of the few who didn't seem to have any sort of reaction, simply raised an eyebrow. "I'm afraid you are going to have to be more specific."

"My father," the woman spat, glaring furiously at the old man, "one of you killed him! And I want to know who!"

"Again, you will have to be specific," Yamamoto told her calmly, barely moving as the woman glared daggers at him, not even opening his eyes.

"My father," The woman spat, "Takashi Osamu."

With his fear confirmed, Yumichika had to bite back a groan, putting on his best poker face as the woman studied each one of their faces, praying no one gave him away. All the while he was assessing her, sizing her up should a fight erupt. No visible weapon, although she may be hiding something up her long flowing sleeves, and her thin form indicated she probably wasn't a fighter. So she could either be a kidou practitioner, or she had just furiously walked into a room full of captains with no way of defending herself should things turn nasty.

A tense silence filled the room as she eyed up each and every one of them, searching for any signs of guilt.

"Well," she said finally, after no one owned up, "if no one will tell me, I suppose I'll just assume you are all taking the blame."

Yumichika barely stopped himself from reacting, swallowing the gasp and closing his eyes to calm his wildly beating heart. If he let them all take the blame, all of Serietei would too, and that was something he could simply not let happen. He glanced over to the head captain, somehow managing to catch his eye. The old man gave a barely perceptible shake of his head, telling him to stand down and let him handle this.

"All of us?" the ancient looking captain asked, "by all means, blame us all, whether you find the one or not you will be fighting us all either way." Her face darkened and a low growl escaped her throat.

"Fine," she ground out, "then I'll just kill you all."

When looking back on the incident later that day, Yumichika still doesn't know how he saw it coming, nor did he know exactly how he threw up the kidou barrier so quickly, or even _how_ he did it. He didn't remember saying or even thinking any incantation of any kind, just one second he was watching the verbal confrontation between the head-captain and the woman, and the next he had thrown up a hand and all the captains including himself had been shrouded inside an individual barrier of glowing green. The next thing they knew, fire filled the room, ripping at the walls and setting the wooden structure alight in a matter of seconds, flames licking at the floor and the walls, but not touching any of the shinigami within the room.

Yumichika, finding he had to concentrate hard just to stop the fire from pressing the barriers down into nothing, managed to glance over at where she was standing, seeing her hovering several inches above the ground, White hair flying around her face; twisted with rage, eyes closed and mouth moving fast, before the fire once again blocked his view.

Something was off about the flames too. It had an almost greenish blue tinge to it, a glow that certainly wasn't natural. He could sense that this wasn't a type of kidou, nor was it a type of Zanpaktou. He had no idea what it was.

Faintly, as if from a far distance, he could hear the shouts from outside what was once the hall, panicked and worried. Without even thinking, he extended another barrier, this time containing the fire, bringing it in closer, the heat, the only thing they could feel of the fire that licked at the transparent green barrier, becoming more intense as the fifth division captain tried to draw it in, away from the other shinigami that weren't protected as they were. He could feel his mind working, feel the power in his finger tips, but he could not feel himself consciously creating the barrier protecting them.

Suddenly, as quickly as it had come, the flames vanished, not even leaving a glowing ember. All that surrounded them were smoking ashes, along with several shocked and cowering shinigami standing just outside the burnt area. Subconsciously realising he no longer had the need to hold the barrier up, Yumichika released it, the glow disappearing and the captains looking around in disbelief and amazement at what had just happened, several staring at the fifth division captain in surprise. Surprise quickly became concern as he swayed a little on his feet, stumbling a little, before his purple eyes became unfocused, rolling back in his head as the slender captain collapsed. Komamura quickly shot out an arm and caught the smaller before he hit the ground, several of the other captains, namely Hisagi and Zaraki, took a step forward, but were halted by another voice.

"Interesting," the high pitched voice of the woman spoke up, all head turned towards her as she stood, calm and serene and certainly not looking like she had just almost destroyed 13 immensely strong shinigami, though her eyes darted back and forth in suspicion and what looked like confusion. "No Kidou spell has ever been able to block my magic before now."

"Magic?" Mayuri couldn't help but ask, "magic as in Kidou?"

"Kidou?" she almost looked insulted at the thought, "Ha! Even the strongest kidou is weak compared to my power."

"Then what was that?" Yamamoto asked, raising an eyebrow.

Her face darkened once more, glaring hard at the old man. But it quickly changed back to her original calm expression and she smiled. "No matter," she drawled, holding her head high and looking at each of them under long pale lashes, suddenly grinning, "I like a challenge."

Smoke from the surrounding area then began to gravitate towards her, twisting around her form and obstructing their view of her. When the grey cloud finally dissipated, she had gone.

* * *

><p>"Hey, he's waking up!"<p>

"What?"

"Hey! Move it."

"You move, the last thing he's gonna want to see after that experience is your ugly mug."

"Oi! Who you callin' ugly?"

"Oh shut it."

Yumichika groaned, his head pounding and his body aching. With great effort he waved his hand somewhere above his head, eyes still clamped shut against the harsh light, in the hopes that it would rid him of the three annoyances that were hovering over him. Unfortunately, both his weakly given order and the waving had no effect in getting the three shinigami to move away or even stop talking.

"How're you feeling sweetie?" he could hear Rangiku's voice coo from somewhere to his right.

"In no mood to wake up to the sound of you three bickering," he croaked, frowning as he tried to open his eyes, unforgiving artificial light burning his retinas. He blinked a few times, allowing his eyes to get used to it, looking around at the guilty faces hovering close by. As well as Rangiku, Ikkaku and Aimi were also there, both looking worried.

"We're just glad you're okay," Aimi whispered, biting her lip.

"No kidding," Ikkaku added, almost looking sombre, if not for the glint in his eye, "when we saw the flames near on destroying the first division I damn near had a heart attack! What happened in there? No one is saying anything."

Yumichika was silent, staring at the ceiling as he thought back to the events of...

"How long was I out?"

"It's been nearly three days," Rangiku said, looking concerned, "we were really worried about you, Unohana said it was just exhaustion, but even so. Some people are saying you were the one to contain that fire."

The dark-haired man nodded slowly, his confused expression counteracting his action.

"I think so."

"You think so?" Ikkaku challenged.

"I'm not so sure what I did, or even how, my body just...did it." His expression of confusion deepened as he tried to remember what it was he did, coming up with nothing, "it was probably just an automatic reaction," he said finally, attempting to shrug it off. But he couldn't, not really. Something was nagging him at the back of his mind, there was certainly something different about what happened in that meeting. There was no incantation, no conscious thought, just action. And that fire. It certainly wasn't a type of Zanpaktou, it was coming directly from her, but it was far too powerful to be a type of kidou.

"There's going to be questions though," Aimi piped up from her chair to the left of his head, "that was some powerful stuff in there, and some incredible control from you." Yumichika just nodded, staring at the ceiling.

"Matsumoto!" Came a loud call from somewhere down the hall. The woman in question gave a guilty chuckle behind her hand. "That'll be my captain," she said, standing up straight and looking out the door, "the amount of paperwork this whole thing has generated is utterly ridiculous." With that she practically skipped out the door, a wide smile covering her face as she prepared to face her young captain's wrath.

Aimi stood from her seat, brushing off her uniform, shaking her head with a small smile, "come to think of it, I have a lot of paperwork to do too. I've been putting it off until you woke up captain, we don't have as much as the others at the moment because of you, but I can guarantee it'll all come pouring in now you're awake."

So then it was just Yumichika and Ikkaku, the latter falling slack in the chair once Aimi was out of sight. He dragged a tired hand over his face, sighing.

"You alright?" Yumichika asked, slowly pushing himself up so he was sat against the multitude of pillows they had provided.

"Just tired," the bald muttered, smiling weakly, "I've hardy slept, just knowing you were still unconscious."

Yumichika's breath caught in his throat at the sight of the haggard look on his old friends face.

"I've lost you once, and almost lost you again not long after, I don't think I can go through that again. When I saw the captains hall, and that fireball, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about all the things that might have happened to you, my mind kept flashing back to that explosion five years ago."

Yumichika smiled a little, shaking his head. "It's okay, whatever happened in the past isn't going to happen again, I won't let it. Not if I have anything to say about it." He gave a reassuring smile to his friend, who couldn't help but smile in return. The long-haired captain chose to leave out the fact that whoever it was in that room was the daughter of the man who had almost killed him last time, and was most likely out for his head. He'd tell them eventually. "Now, I think what you need is to go home and get some sleep."

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><p>It was another day before Unohana deemed him healthy enough to be discharged and although Aimi had brought him some of his paperwork while he was in there to keep him occupied and shrink the pile a little, he was glad to be out of the dull room and back into his colourful office.<p>

But the sight that met him was one of both annoyance and absolute horror. The only way to describe it was a paper mountain. Or suicide, as Hisagi saw fit to describe it when he walked in not too long later. With a low groan he slumped in his chair, looking around at five three foot high piles of paper. He may even have to get his third seat involved in this one.

Two weeks passed, and all was quiet without incident, save a murderous Mizaki descending on the city; furious that no one had told her about her brother. Things settled back to normal, piles of paperwork shrank back to manageable portions and construction work began and finished on the first division. But some of the captains were still a little worried, always on their guard, watching out for things that were out of place, anything that might indicate she was back. Yumichika had a constant nagging at the back of his mind that unless he stepped forward, all of Serietei was going to pay for his mistake. Someone should at least know who she was.

Which was how he found himself in Matsumoto's office one chilly early-spring evening, head on the desk as he tried to force back a headache.

"His daughter?" the strawberry-blonde exclaimed, sitting back in her chair with a thoughtful expression. "So in other words you have a furious woman with a strange power after your blood?"

Yumichika nodded into the desk, not looking up. "That's about the gist of it, only she doesn't yet know she's after my blood specifically, just whoever it was that killed her father is now a captain of the Gotei thirteen. So at the moment, she's after all of us."

"I can see how that would be a problem," Rangiku grimaced, tapping her chin in thought. They were all in trouble at this point. "The only way to get her away from them is to admit to it and face her yourself, but I don't think anyone here would let you do that."

This made him look up, eyes wide and questioning.

Rangiku giggled at his face. "For starters I was with you when Osamu died, I'm just as much to blame as you are. Almost," she grinned, "and I know for a fact there are at least ten people who would be willing to fight with you, not including your entire division, who would be willing to follow you even to death," She almost laughed at his look of shock, "We're a team, everyone together, whatever you face, so do we. You've been in the eleventh too long," she sighed at his still shocked expression. "They may have a 'every man for himself' mindset, but I can bet you in a pinch even they would be willing to help you. She nearly killed all our captains, she's practically declared war against us all, not just you."

A small grateful smile made its way to the captain's face during her little speech.

"Thanks Rangiku."

Their 'moment' was cut short as the alarm rang out throughout the city, alerting them to an attack, several thousand hollows had descended upon their walls, appearing seemingly out of nowhere. The pair looked up, frowns clear on their faces.

"And so it begins."

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><p><strong>AN: The first full chapter, and the action has already started :D Hope you enjoyed, and as usual, all reviews are both welcomed and encouraged.**


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